There is a resurgence of interest in the production of new therapeutic agents using botanical sources. Genetically engineered plants can now be used to produce pharmacologically active proteins, including mammalian antibodies, blood product substitutes, vaccines, hormones, cytokines, and a variety of other therapeutic agents. Plant production of biopharmaceuticals holds great potential, and may become an important production system for a variety of new biopharmaceutical products such as vaccines and recombinant proteins for example.
Plants are potentially a low cost and contamination safe factory for the production of recombinant biopharmaceutical proteins. Plants are uniquely capable of efficient protein expression of different complexity levels at high yields and low costs. Plant-based biopharmaceuticals manufacturing systems represent a viable alternative to the traditional biopharmaceuticals development processes, and may provide tremendous advantages over current traditional production systems.
However, certain challenges nonetheless remain with the use of plants for the commercial production of proteins, most particularly because previously used systems for the infiltration and processing of plants remain relatively laborious and cost ineffective. For example, plant trays, which have been long widely used in plant nurseries and greenhouses, are not adapted for automatic transplanters and high-throughput automated processes, such as those which may be used in automated infiltration systems.
Accordingly, improvements in making plant-based proteins automated production more commercially viable still remain, in terms for example of the efficiency and cost effectiveness of production, the quality control and standardization of the produced proteins.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved tray for receiving plant samples adapted to be used when performing the infiltration of such plants in an automated process, such as a high-throughput process of candidate proteins and a standardized process for the production of recombinant proteins for example.